The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Conformity and Confession"
Conclusion - Love and Wrath
We conclude our consideration of conformity to God's will and confession of our sins with one of the more intriguing statements of Scripture.
"But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared" (Psalm 130:4).
We might not suspect that God's forgiveness would elicit fear (the Hebrew root word "yare" denotes a particularly intense form of fright). To the contrary, proper responses such as joy, peace, and wonder might seem to be what the Psalmist would express regarding the marvel of mercy in the heart of the God who loves to forgive (Psalm 130:4). Our Heavenly Father would have us rejoice in His pardon and cleansing through Christ, and beckons us to believe that mercy ever awaits at the throne of grace as we make our approach through the Lord Jesus (Hebrews 4:16).
Why then does the Psalmist couple fear and forgiveness? The answer lies in how seriously God takes the matter. His character would not allow Him to pardon sin based on mere fiat or feeling. He rather forgives based on fury, that is, His execution of wrath against the beloved Son "made to be sin for us" on the cross of Calvary (II Corinthians 5:21). Every sin God has ever forgiven, or ever will forgive, results from the sorrow, pain, forsakenness, and death of the Lord Jesus. "Without shedding of blood is no remission" (Hebrews 9:22). Saints of old looked forward to a promised sacrifice for sins (Isaiah 53). Saints since the cross look back on a fulfilled promise of "one sacrifice for sins forever" (Hebrews 10:12). God sees the matter from His eternal perspective, having purposed the slaughter of the Lamb from everlasting, determining to turn away no one was seeks forgiveness through Christ (Revelation 13:8; John 6:37).
Such solemn truth casts the matter of sin in the most somber light. It also casts the matter of sin forgiven in the same seriousness. How righteous and holy is a God who loves to forgive, but who cannot violate His character in doing so, to the degree He poured out His wrath on His eternally beloved Son, "made… to be sin for us?" (II Corinthians 5:21). Certainly, He would have us rejoice with "joy unspeakable and full of glory" when He pardons our iniquities (I Peter 1:8). However, just as certainly, we must plant deeply within our hearts the horrors experienced by the Lord Jesus on the cross of Calvary. A loving Father made such mercy available. A righteous Judge did so by decreeing and implementing a sentence starkly expressed by the hymnwriter…
"But none of the ransomed ever knew how deep were the waters crossed, nor how dark was the night the Lord passed through e're He found His sheep that was lost" ("The Ninety and Nine," - Elizabeth Clephane).
The price paid for our forgiveness allows - and necessitates - a proper place for fear in our understanding of God's forgiveness. Just as the Psalmist declared, and just as the trusting saint acknowledges when seeking pardon in the light of the love and the wrath that made it possible. We seek conformity to God's will in the light of such truth. We confess our sins in the same light, which both illuminates and blinds in the wonder of grace, and the sacrifice that made it possible.
"We did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted… He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities."
(Isaiah 53:4; 11)
Weekly Memory Verse
But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared.
(Psalm 130:4)
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